The
quest for alternative fuel sources that are cleaner, cheaper, and
more abundant than traditional fossil fuels is underway around the
world. Researchers are studying everything from battery
power to solar energy and fuel cells.

Fuel cells hold
great promise and have long been studied as alternatives to fossil
fuels. Traditionally, the problems plaguing fuel cell-powered
vehicles that run from hydrogen include how to produce the hydrogen
cheaply and how to store it safely. Despite issues that still
surround fuel cell-powered vehicles, a study
conducted in June by Pike Research found that within the
next decade 670,000 fuel cell powered vehicles would be sold each
year.

Researchers at the Cornell University Energy Materials
Center have made a breakthrough discovery that will make hydrogen
fuel cell power much more economical. The breakthrough comes in the
form of a new
catalyst that uses platinum nanoparticles. Platinum is
traditionally used in fuel cells as the catalyst, but platinum is
expensive and can be easily deactivated in the presence of even low
levels of carbon monoxide rendering the fuel cell inoperable.

The
Cornell researchers have discovered a method of making the platinum
catalyst able to withstand thousands of times more carbon monoxide.
The process also makes the platinum catalyst material much cheaper to
produce. The team created the catalyst using platinum nano particles
that are deposited on a support material of titanium oxide. The team
then added tungsten to increase the electrical conductivity of the
catalyst. The resulting platinum catalyst is 2,000 times more
resistant to carbon monoxide than a catalyst using pure
platinum.

That higher resistance to carbon monoxide
means that the fuel cell can burn hydrogen with as much as 2% carbon
monoxide in it. The researchers say this is very important because
hydrogen derived from petroleum has a high concentration of carbon
monoxide in it. The ability for the catalyst to withstand more carbon
monoxide eliminates the need to clean the hydrogen as much, thereby
reducing the cost of making hydrogen.

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This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled

A) Still doesn't answer the question of where these hydrogen filling stations are going to come from.B) Doesn't mention how costly it will be to reduce the CO2 to 2% and whether that becomes economically viable.C) Probably still 10-25yrs away from commercial production, like all "breakthroughs", and...

It's not that it isn't simple - it's almost trivial to break water into hydrogen and oxygen. You can do it with some batteries, two wires, and a cup of water.

The problem is that each chemical molecule has a certain amount of energy potential. Water has a very low potential. So when you combine hydrogen with oxygen to make water, they drop to that low potential and release a lot of energy in the process.

But to do it in reverse, you have to add energy. The amount of energy you need to add to water to break it up into hydrogen and oxygen exceeds the amount of energy you get by burning them to create water again. So unless you have a cheap and abundant source of electrical energy (e.g. nuclear), there is no point cracking water into hydrogen and oxygen. You're better off just using the energy needed for the process directly.

Molecules of petroleum and methane store hydrogen at a much higher energy state. Their energy state is much closer to pure hydrogen than to water. So you add a little bit of energy to them to break off the hydrogen, then combine that with oxygen in the air to create water. The energy released in the second step is a lot more than the energy you used in the first step, so the net result is a large amount of energy released.

I know that Honda was tinkering with a home refueling station. This was part of the FCX Clarity project where they were leasing 300(?) of the fuel cell vehicles in the So Cal area where there are a handful of hydrogen refueling stations located at standard Shell gas stations.

Plug it in, add water, push start and after a certain amount of time you have enough hydrogen to fill your tank. Great thing to have in your garage IMO. If your electricity is cheap this is an alternative, but I would not call it green by a long shot, but still you don't have the exhaust emissions of an ICE from it so it is still greener than nothing.

So far, the process for "cracking" hydrogen from water is still a very energy intensive process and there is basically no gain from doing it this way.

I believe that now the most efficient way that is being used is by using natural gas.

The promise here is not weening ourselves off of hydrocarbons, but reducing the emissions from the tailpipe. A hydrogen fuel cell produces water as a by product.

The reason that this is important is that it makes the process of making hydrogen from any source less energy intensive by letting the fuel cell use hydrogen that is less pure. It also will help with the reliability of fuel cells

There is really no point in producing hydrogen by electrolysis of water in a car because the net energy gain is at most zero (according to the laws of thermodynamics). The only setting in where electrolysis makes sense is possibly mass production of hydrogen in a centralized facility coupled to an efficient power source (nuclear, renewables, etc) - in which case you're back to square one. Otherwise, people derive hydrogen from fossil fuels because there is a gain of energy (relative to the amount of energy you have to expend to obtain the hydrogen).

What you want is energy to run your car. So you need to provide Hydrogen and Oxygen. Just so happens there is enough Oxygen in the air that we get that for free. So we need Hydrogen for fuel to combine with the oxygen to get the energy (and water).

If your goal is to get energy to run the car and you have water that does you no good. To get hydrogen from the water you need energy and if you have an energy source to split the water then why the heck don't you just power your car with THAT energy source?

No, not simple. Then your net energy would be zero at best, and your car would not move, because the energy required to break water apart is at best equal to the energy released when it recombines if you have 100% efficiency.

Believe it or not, there was a group at Samsung selling such an idea to the upper management, and they were buying into it. They kept that dog and pony show rolling for a couple of years to keep the funding coming in until management noticed that the technology wasn't going anywhere. I was surprised at how stupid company execs can be with regards to basic scientific laws, and many of them have advanced engineering degrees.

As far as using water to generate hydrogen, there are some working on using solar energy to do so to sea water as a way to "store" solar power in the form of hydrogen.

The energy produced in fuel cell (if 100% efficient) is exactly equal to the energy required to split water. With a perfect fuel cells you "car" would never move. It would simply convert a tank of water into water vapor with 0 watts of excess energy.

However in the real world fuel cells are more like 50%-60% efficient so it wouldn't even do that.

quote: reduce the CO2 to 2% and whether that becomes economically viable.

I am not sure if you read the article right. They are not concerned with Carbon Di oxide, it is Carbon Mon oxide they want below 2% in the fuel.

I look at this as what will really be the alternative to EVs which have issues, have always had issues and probably will continue to have issues for most people.

While cars like the Volt and the Leaf get allot of print from a press that knows no better, they have serious limitations.

Since there is already an existing infrastructure of gas and diesel stations out there, it makes sense to turn these to include hydrogen as well and take advantage of the in place logistics that are there.

I know that there are a bunch of you out there who ignore such practicalities as this, but to have any chance of any of these emissions reduction vehicles like this out there and in mass use, this is what will have to happen.

Also I have noted a tendency on the part of may here to want to just tear down Big Oil, no matter what. Even if it is at the cost of a real solution. In the end we will need the infrastructure that Big Oil has put in to make this work. Even if it is just a pure EV it would still make sense to use a regular gas station as a quick charge stop.

In answer to your last statement, if the current rate of development is continued and the existing gas stations are converted to Hydrogen, this could start to happen within 5-10 years, in my opinion.

A) "The researchers say this is very important because hydrogen derived from petroleum has a high concentration of carbon monoxide in it."

Apparently they intend to use petroleum filling stations and get the hydrogen from the petroleum.B) The new catalyst allows up to 2% CO while the current ones require much less so it will be less costly to reduce the CO to 2% then it would be to reduce it to 0% as they currently do.

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